winter maintence ,what you got planned ?

[unfazed]

iam lucky to have both the 6 and thou fazers ,the 6 ive had for many,many years and is very well looked after ,the thou was bought to ride and thats excatly what ive been doing for the last 5 years or so....back in october i was planning to go to the classic bike show in stafford a 260 mile round trip for me so i took the thou for comfort but with only 5 miles done i pulled up at a junction only to be surrounded by a plume of steam ,coolant was leaking onto the exhaust  :'( ..let the old girl cool down and take a slow ride home , got the 6 out and had a good day at the show.....
last weekend i dug the thou out and had a look .looks like the leak was coming from the expansion tank area and dripping down onto the exhaust,hence the steam ,difficult to see exactly so i thought the rear suspension could do with a clean and re-grease so i stripped the back end out along with the rear mudguard which gave me good access to the tank ,still cant see where the leak is so i decide to take the exhaust off to have a better look,exhaust studs dont look good so plenty of plusgas over a number of days and i manage to get 6 of the nuts off,i broke the other 2 studs  :'( ...exhaust bracket thats welded to the collector box is also broken ,come adrift at the weld so theres another job and remember ive still not found the leak  :rolleyes
i ground down the 2 broken studs and drilled out with 3mm drill ,they both broke easy but are a little harder to drill out, thats as far as ive got
going to see if i can find some reverse drills to get the rest of the studs out if not i can see this ending up needing a couple of helicoils......
plenty to keep me busy this winter but it will be worth it when iam back on the road in the spring  :thumbup
will post some piccies later when ive worked out how the new wifi works....ie.....get my son to sort it when he gets in  :lol

VNA, that sounds like a leak from the water pump mechanical seal. Since it is inside the engine there is an internal pipe from the water pump housing which directs the coolant out through a hole in the sump directly on to the Exhaust.
Oil pump and water pump are on the same shaft driven by a chain.